Why Pharrell, Kanye and Dev Hynes are getting off on synaesthesia

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jun/06/nick-ryan-synaesthesia-kanye-pharrell

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Synaesthesia is all the rage these days, it would seem. Dev Hynes gave a TED talk on the condition in March; Kanye described Yeezus as a "sonic painting"; and Pharrell reckons the chorus of Happy is "a little pink, a little rainbow-y". According to Wikipedia it's a "phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second pathway" so that noises may conjure colourful visions or words might have a flavour. It's no wonder so many musos are currently claiming synaesthesia as their superpower. But what's it really like and does it have any effect on the music that they make?

For Nick Ryan, Bafta award-winning composer and synaesthete, his first go on a Walkman was like legal LSD. "It was an extremely satisfying experience," he recalls. "If I drove past a fence, certain aspects of the rhythm would stick out. Or if I touched a brick wall, all the high-frequency texture would jump out in volume." 

This summer, as part of Imogen Heap's Reverb festival at the Roundhouse, Ryan will attempt to represent the synaesthetic experience with the London Contemporary Orchestra and visual artists Quayola & Sinigaglia, with the duo's images reacting live to Ryan's soundtrack. He describes first encountering their rich video tapestries – a cross between Kanye West's Black Skinhead video and a highly sophisticated moving Magic Eye – and having an overwhelming sense that someone had finally accurately represented what was going on inside his head.

Ryan says that synaesthesia does not make him a better musician but it does make him a different one. He feels that "synaesthetes are drawn to certain sounds. It's whatever we can get off on, basically. And there are some real easy wins. For example, really textural, high-frequency sounds are very stimulating because they're so fizzy and detailed." He cites the piano in Saint-Saëns's Aquarium – the universal soundtrack to magical moments in kids' films – as "total porn for the synaesthete" and confesses to a secret addiction to the crotch-low bass in Alexis Jordan's Happiness.

To Ryan, the abundance of self-diagnosed synesthetes in hip-hop and R&B has a lot to do with the sounds used. "The dynamic range in those genres is incredibly sensory and almost tangible," he says. "There's very little light and shade to the tracks."

Ryan points out that new technologies – everything from vibrating mobile phones to laser light shows – enable us all to experience a collision of senses, leading to a kind of "cultural synaesthesia". The kind of sensory abundance enjoyed by Kanye, Pharrell et al may soon be available to the masses.

Nick Ryan's Synaesthesia is at The Roundhouse, N1, 23 Aug